Building a readership for your poetry can be difficult. Self-publishing is a great way to take control of the publication process and to build an audience for yourself. If you want to self-publish your poetry, just follow these steps.

Steps

Method1

Prepare to Self-Publish Your Poetry

1

Finish your set or selection of poems. Before you even start trying to self-publish your book, have a finished and polished collection of poetry. If you start worrying about the publication details before you finish writing your book, you won't be able to fully focus on either task. Here's how to finish your book of poetry:

Write and revise each poem in the collection multiple times.

Find the best way to arrange the poems in the book. The arrangement will work best if it creates a mood or develop a theme. You don't have to arrange the poems in the order that they were written.

Ask for feedback from a few reliable sources. Make sure that you're not the only one who feels that your work is truly done.

Proofread your work. Check that the punctuation, line breaks, and grammar are all perfectly executed.

2

Consider seeking professional help. If know you want to publish your book yourself, but you're worried about working out the other details on your own, ask for professional help before taking the book to a vendor. Here are some people who can help you to work out the details:

Consider hiring an editor. A reputable professional editor can give you valuable feedback on the quality of your writing.

Consider hiring an illustrator or designer for your book cover. If you're nervous about creating the cover yourself, hiring a professional to do it for you can help make your book look more appealing.

3

Look into different self-publishing methods. Once your book and its cover are done, look into different self-publishing methods to choose which one will likely work best for you. The best method can be determined by how much you want to spend, how many readers you expect to have, and how easy you want the publication process to be. Here are three popular methods of self-publishing:

The e-book. Self-publishing your book as an e-book is cheap, easy, and will create a digital copy of your book online for readers to download through different reading devices.

A print-on-demand (POD) service. Using a POD service is a way to create a visually appealing physical copy of your book and to sell it in an online marketplace.

Publishing through a website or a blog. Creating a website or a blog for publishing your poetry is a quick and easy way to reach a lot of readers without having to deal with a vendor.

4

Keep your expectations realistic. Self-publishing is a great way to take control of the publication process and to make your work accessible to more readers. However, it is not a reliable route to getting rich quick, especially not in the poetry business. Though you have undoubtedly heard a few success stories of self-published books that have become best-sellers, this rarely happens with self-published books.

Prepare to be excited to share a copy of your work with more people, but don't be disappointed if you don't have as many readers as you expected.

Method2

Publish Your Poetry as an E-book

1

Understand the e-book's value and pitfalls. There are many advantages to publishing your book as an e-book, but there are some disadvantages as well. Before you choose this method of self-publication, be aware of the advantages and disadvantages. They include:[1]

Advantages:

Expenses. Publishing an e-book won't cost much more than it will to write it.

Potential for serious revenue. If your book becomes an e-book bestseller, you have the potential to make a lot of money. Some direct publishing vendors allow authors to keep up to 60 or even 70 percent of the revenue, so that could add up to a lot of money. However, this rarely happens, in spite of what you may have read about e-book incomes.

Disadvantages:

No advertising. You'll have to do all the marketing yourself. If you have a good Twitter, Google+ and Facebook following though, this can be something you can get started fairly easily.

Competitive pricing. Some e-books are sold for less than a dollar, so you will have to sell a lot of copies to make revenue.

No physical copy. You won't have the satisfaction of holding your published book in your hands, or of having a few copies around to show to people. That said, there is nothing stopping you from getting a few copies printed for posterity.

2

Work out the details. Before you reach out to a vendor, work out a few of the details of the book. Here are a few things you'll want to have figured out before you moved to the next stage of the publication process: [2]

Create a cover. You can create the cover of your book of poetry yourself, or you can hire someone to do it for you or ask for the help of a design-savvy friend.

Set a price. A good price range for one copy for your book is $2.99-$9.99. If your book is cheaper, more people will be encouraged to buy it, but if it's more expensive, you may have less buyers but will make more revenue.

Decide whether or not to enable Digital Rights Management (DRM). When you upload your book to different online retailers, you'll have to decide whether or not to enable DRM. Enabling DRM makes piracy less likely, but it also makes it harder for people to read the e-book on various reading devices.

Write a description of your book. Write a few sentences describing your book, and choose the search keywords and categories that will help people find your book. If you're having trouble doing it yourself, contact a professional formatter.

3

Format your book. Format your book to make sure that it will fit the requirements of a Kindle, iPad, Nook, and other reading devices. You can either work this out yourself, or have it formatted by a professional e-book formatter.

Choose whether your book will be available as a PDF, which is the most common method, or if you prefer an HTML format or a Windows executable file (EXE).

Once you've chosen the format, convert your Word document to the appropriate type of e-book. Adobe is used for creating a PDF, programs like Dreamweaver can help you create the HTML format code yourself, and an e-book compiler will covert your EXE files.

4

Choose your online retailer. Do some research to decide which distributor suits your needs. Consider how each vendor formats its books, and what revenue rates each vendor gives its authors.[3]

Check out some e-books from a few different vendors to get a better sense of which vendors are right for you.

5

Upload your book. Create an account with the online retailer, and upload all of the information you've worked out, including the book itself, the cover, description, and any other relevant information you need to finish the process.

Each retailer may ask for slightly different information though the basic process is the same.

6

Publish your book. Once you've uploaded your book and all the necessary information, publish your book. You will have control of your online account and will be able to publish the book, and manage the distribution.

Don't forget to advertise. The online retailer won't advertise for you, so you should make sure to advertise for your book if you want to have a wide readership. You can do this by creating a website, blog, or a Facebook fan page.

Method3

Publish Your Poetry Through a Print on Demand Service

1

Understand print on demand (POD) services. These are services that allow you to submit an electronic copy of your book and print the book for you. Through these services, you can put your book on the online marketplace of that service and buy as many copies of that book as you like. Some vendors even distribute your book to other sellers, which gives your book more of an opportunity to have a readership. Here are the advantages and disadvantages of using a POD service:[1]

Advantages:

Having a physical copy of the book. Having a book that you can hold in your hands can make the book's publication feel more concrete, and can make it easier for you to show or give the book to friends or people who are interested.

Having a vendor work out the formatting and printing. Instead of doing this yourself, you can save time and effort by having someone do it for you. If you leave this work to the professionals, you have a higher chance of making the book look amazing.

Disadvantages:

You still need to market your book.

Expenses. This option is much more expensive than self-publishing an e-book.

Less room for creativity. Though the online vendors will have a wide variety of size, binding, and formatting options for you to choose from, you'll still have to meet their formatting standards and have less room to branch out.

2

Choose a vendor. Before you choose a vendor, research as many vendors as possible to find the best place for publishing your book. If money is a concern, focus more on the pricing at each vendor, but if you're more worried about the quality of the product, spend more time focusing on the formatting and the look of the book once it's printed.

If you're struggling to make a decision between vendors, consider creating an account with one vendor and publishing one copy of the book and sending yourself a copy to see what it looks like.

Do this without making the book available to the public or creating an ISBN, so if you're not happy with the product, it will be easy for you to remove the book from the market and try somewhere else.

3

Format the book with the vendor. Each vendor will have different formatting requirements, but the basic process of formatting won't vary too much. First, create an account with that vendor, and then do the following things before publishing your book:

Choose whether it will be a paperback or hardcover book.

Write the title and author's first and last names.

Select the privacy settings you want. This can determine whether anyone can view the book on the vendor's marketplace, or if it can only be seen by you.

Choose the type of paper you'll use.

Choose the size of the paper.

Choose the type of binding.

Choose whether the book will be in black or white or in full color.

4

Upload your book and cover. Once you've decided on the formatting settings for your book, upload a copy of your manuscript. Also upload your book's cover. If you haven't created a book cover in advance, most vendors will help you choose a theme and layout for your cover and create it before you publish the book.

You can also enlist the help of a professional to make your cover, or ask for the help of a design-savvy friend.

5

Publish your book. Once you've chosen your settings and uploaded your book, simply push a button that will publish the book. Once the book is published, you can search it in the vendor's online marketplace and order as many copies of the book as you want.

6

Advertise for your book. Though you have self-published your book of poetry, your work is not over. If you want to reach a wider audience, you'll have to advertise for your book, whether it's by starting a blog or a website, creating a Facebook fan page, emailing your friends and acquaintances, or getting a business card to promote the book.

Many vendors will also have an option that will help you promote your book, but you will have to pay for that.

Method4

Publish Your Poetry Online

1

Publish your poetry through a website. You can create a website for your book, or just a website for yourself as an author, which will allow readers to quickly and easily access your work. Make your website easy to find and navigate, and allow your readers to view and maybe even comment on your poetry.

Choose a simple format. Make sure that your poems look good on the online page and that the line breaks and font meet your standards.

You can decide whether every poem will be published on one long page, or if readers can simply view a table of contents and click on the poem they want to read.

Remember that a website is a great form of advertisement. Use your site to not only display your writing, but to promote your writing.

2

Publish your poetry on a blog. A blog lets you release each poem individually and quickly get reader feedback as your blog readers leave comments, and it gives readers an easy way to keep up with your poetry by subscribing to your blog feed. You get no payment up front, but it's the easiest way to get reader feedback.

Research the various blog hosts and pick the one best suited to your needs and budget.

For a blog, set up your site appearance, URL, subscription options, and any custom web coding necessary to make poems display properly.

Once you build a readership, add advertisements to your blog if you want a source of revenue; or, release your poems as an e-book or physical book that can be purchased––added value in such a compilation may include illustrations and a special foreword from you.

You can also easily edit a blog, so you can go back to make changes, or even add some poems to your collection.

Just be wary about online reading attention span. Someone who reads your poetry on your blog may not be planning to give your work as much time and attention as someone with an e-book of your work or a physical copy of the book. If you feel that confining yourself to this attention span spoils the creativity, avoid using this outlet for your poems.

Tips

If you buy a domain name, get a private WhoIs. Otherwise, anyone interested in the poems you self-publish can look up your name, address, and phone number.

Check the copyright regulations for your country. In some countries, you may need to register your copyright to be able to prosecute someone for stealing your work. However, if your country is covered by the Berne Convention on intellectual property, your work will already be covered by its copyright protection laws.

ISBN codes are 13-digit machine-readable bar codes and are often worth acquiring, particularly if you can get one free or at a discount. Many book sellers and libraries require that books they stock have ISBNs, because the ISBN makes ordering and shelving easier; no two books have the exact same ISBN. An ISBN also gets your book listed in places that would otherwise might ignore it, such as Books in Print. Most POD or e-book retailers will provide an ISBN for you, but if you're publishing the book completely on your own, you'll need to get one yourself.

Have someone else proofread your poems. No matter how many times you check them, you could still miss something, because you're the creator, and you'll read what you meant to write rather than what you actually wrote.

Before you self-publish your poetry, polish your collection of poems by getting feedback from reliable sources and incorporating their suggestions and edits. Once you have a completed selection of poems, decide between publishing an e-book, using a print-on-demand service, or putting your poetry on a website or blog. Then, upload your poems, cover art, and format using the online vendor you’ve chosen. Finally, advertise your book by creating a Facebook fan page and asking your friends and family to spread the word.

Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 104,238 times.

Did this article help you?

Cookies make wikiHow better. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our cookie policy.

Co-Authored by:

wikiHow Staff Editor

A wikiHow Staff Editor reviewed this article to make sure it's helpful and accurate. Learn more...

Co-authors: 13

Updated:

Views: 104,238

92% of readers found this article helpful.

12 votes - 92%

Click a star to add your vote

92% of people told us that this article helped them.

SB

Sanderia Butler

Mar 30, 2016

"To make sure all my work is reviewed several times before I send it off for review, and to have a professional handle my cover page Illustration. My son is a graphic design student and will do this for me."..." more

MP

Melissa P.

Sep 28, 2016

"This article gave me a few options that I never would have considered for gaining a forum for my poetry. Very helpful!"..." more

MM

Marieon Magadani

Jan 18

"What helped me the most is the steps that l have to take before l consider publishing my poems."

PB

Peterson Bodley

Dec 5, 2016

"Everything said is actually new to me, a learning experience. It is sound advice indeed."